27 February 2001
I. Campbell
A. Constructive defense of freedom
1. Narrow area of application
a. Resisting temptation
b. But there are some free acts that do not
involve resisting temptation
2. Evidence of our own experience. We seem to be free: we
seem to make decisions of which we are the sole author, and which are such that
we could have made a different decision.
B. Deterministic counter-arguments
1. Doesn’t this free will imply (unacceptably) unpredictability?
2. Aren’t actions that are not the product of
the agent’s character meaningless?
II. The general structure of the problem of free
will
A. Conflict between three claims:
1. We (sometimes) act freely.
2. Every event is preceded by events that are
causally sufficient for it.
3. If you act freely, then you could have done
otherwise.
B. Each claim looks good in its own right.
1. Can we really deny that we act freely? Hardly.
2. “Every effect has a sufficient
cause”: even for unexpected events we presuppose a cause (and expected
events are expected on the basis of their causes).
3. “No freedom without alternate
possibilities”: if the act is just bound to occur, if you
don’t have any alternatives, then are you really free?
C. Paradox: (2) and (3) imply that you never act freely, that (1) is false.
But (1) is hard, maybe impossible, to deny. What to do?
D. Three positions
1. Hard Determinism: accepts (2) and
(3), denies (1).
2. Libertarianism: accepts (1) and
(3), denies (2).
3. Soft Determinism (or
“Compatibilism”): accepts (1) and (2), denies (3).